Re: “Health Services does good work” | Commentary | November 4

McGill Health Services isn’t excellent. Since writing my Hyde Park, I’ve heard stories far worse than my own. The students I talked to had to take matters into their own hands and go to another health care centre.

I would hope that the medical institution I pay for takes far better care of me than sending me home with a prescription and telling me to come back “if symptoms worsen.” When you have pneumonia, you can’t wake up at 7 a.m. to drag yourself to Health Services before everyone else gets there. You just can’t. To truly “err on the side of safety,” the doctor could’ve done a lot more.

I will use this space to give Pierre-Paul Tellier two pieces of advice:
1. Allow for more specialized attention of specific cases, such as follow-up appointments, referrals, and information about each patient’s case.

2. Since my experience, I’ve been told by students that there are plenty of walk-in clinics all over Montreal that are covered by my health insurance. Why didn’t I know about this before? An institution that’s under-staffed and over-worked should provide patients with the advice to go elsewhere.

As it is, I have my Belgian health care to thank that I’m still alive, not Health Services. They don’t excel, and for me, they weren’t even adequate. The simple fact that the treatment I got elsewhere was far better than that which I got at McGill shows that there is quite a bit of room for improvement. And if there isn’t any room for improvement (Health Services is squished into a tiny townhouse, after all), then Health Services and its staff should inform students about their alternatives.

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